January 6, 2025 • 30 mins
It's time for our yearly Q&A, in which we answer questions from you, the audience. Whom we often appreciate.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to coopby bul Died Cool Stuff twenty
twenty five edition. And by that, I mean it's the
start of the year, and so we're gonna do a
question to answer episode like we've done at the start
of I think every year. I'm Marder Kiljoy and I
don't know why my voice just cracked. And my producer
is Sophie Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Sophie Hi, MiG Pie. I don't know why your voice
cracked either.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It cracked earlier today and I don't know. I think
I'm finally going through anyway. Uh, that's making real personal
jokes on air. That's a normal thing. But our audio
engineer is Rory Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Rory Hi, Roy.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Our theme musical is written for us by unwoman, and
our guest today is nobody.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Ah Hey, Magfie. Yeah, do you want to answer some questions?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Do I ever want to answer some questions?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, we posted on Instagram and Blue Sky asking for you,
dear listeners, to submit your questions, and by golly, you did,
so we're going to start with the Instagram questions today.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You ready, I was born ready?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I know this about you, Magpie. What story or person's
story do you find yourself returning to when you are
in need of hope or inspiration for these trying times.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Ooh, okay, I can't remember his name. I just remembered it,
Willem Arundeus. On the Gay Resistance to Fascism episode we
did right out of the Gate, there's a man who
he helped burn a bunch of Nazi records and the Netherlands,
and he was part of this art click that did
forgery that saved tens of thousands of people's lives and
(01:49):
then also destroyed the records that they were using to
track people. And he was caught and before he was executed,
he got his last words out through his lawyer, and
his lawyer told the world that his last words were
never let them say that homosexuals or cowards or something
to that effect. And just like all of the people
(02:12):
that they think are timid are not timid. That's what
That's what I keep coming back to. What about you?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, I think I think about the Jine collective a lot,
and yeah, food not bombs a lot, just because we
get a lot of messages about that. Do you want
to tell people a little bit about those messages?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Oh? Yeah. One of the things that I actually sent
on on New Year's I sent this out three in
the morning, message out to everyone who helps work on
this show, because there's a whole bunch of people who
help who work on this show, and I'm just incredibly
grateful to them. And I know that everyone's supposed to
say that, but it's like, but the reason I was
expressing this gratitude to everyone is that I've got a
bunch of messages from different Food Not Bombs chapters around
(02:52):
the country that have basically been like, hey, our numbers
have dramatically increased after you do an episode about food
out Bombs or you know, people on cool Zone Media
talk about how I look at the end of the day,
there's nothing wrong with given out food, you know. And
I met someone once who was like had been looking
for their place in life and was like, now I'm
just a cook. I just make soup all the time
(03:12):
and I love it and it's their thing, you know,
And that was like, I don't know, podcast seems like
a weirdly lonely endeavor, even though we obviously have these
zoom calls, right, but like, I just spend dozens of
hours every week at least reading books and writing by myself.
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, it's like a very uh like it's an introverted
career where you have to be extroverted on Mike for
like part of the week.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I'm a social sprinter, is the way I've always
put it.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, you are.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
One time, my whole family is like super hard introverts,
and I was talking about being an introvert and my
family laughed because I'm the most outgoing person in my
media family. Yeah, but you will hold me up against
most of my friends and people are like no, I
mean literally all you do is hide in your house,
you know.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You know, yeah, yeah, I have the same thing in
my family where I'm like no, no, no, I just
it's just not that way, guys.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
My Margaret's ability to maintain optimism in dark times always
helps me. Oh, is there anything either of you are
looking forward to in the next year. That's a nice,
nice thing.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I am. I learned a long time ago that my
emotional state is really directly tied into how the things
I'm making are going, which is not for the best.
I don't recommend this particular style of being to anyone,
but projects that I'm working on, whether they're political, organizing,
which I don't do as much of these days, or
(04:47):
if they're like you know, podcasts or books or whatever,
how those are going really directly affects my mood. And
so even as things are going really badly in the
world or and you know, directly materially in my life
or you know, legalistically for trans people or whatever, I
(05:07):
can kind of always come back to, like, how's what
I'm writing going, you know. And so there's that, and
then there's also just the fact that, like, I mean,
the whole idea of the show, right when I first said,
I was like, oh, cool people did cool stuff, And
I was like, oh, it's first, I have to spend
a long time describing all the bad things, you know,
because that's where like the cool people come from, is
(05:28):
in opposition to the bad. So I'm looking forward to
the flowerings of resistance. Yeah, that were I mean, I
would rather not, right, I'd rather just be looking forward
to like making art. And I would be perfectly happy
if all I did was like carve wooden boxes or whatever,
you know. But you know, we work with what we got,
(05:51):
and we got rough times coming, and so therefore we
can find beauty in how people respond to and deal
with thought. How about you?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, I mean, I'm honestly just looking forward to being
home and seeing my friends at my home. I want
to sit still for a minute.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I feel like I did not sit still in twenty
twenty four and that was hard. Yeah, but I'm looking
forward to I've got several different friends that I'll be
coming into my area early next year, and I'm very
happy about that.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Oh, importing friends is the best.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And if you're listening and you
know I'm talking about you, Hi, let's see. Oh, this
is a cool question. Who are your top picks for
their stories going full bio pic in the cinema?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Oh. I feel like half of the episodes we do
are things that absolutely would be that and then just
aren't because they're, yeah, you know, the wrong kind of
political or of a person or something. Uh. I would
watch the story of Scharlam Swartzbard's life, who was the
(07:11):
Ukrainian anarchist Jew who assassinated the man who did all
the pogroms against his own family, just like gunned him
down in the streets of France, and then the cops
came and were like, did you just kill that man?
And he's like I did. And then there's versions of
the story where he points the gun at the body
and pulls the trigger just yeah, the gun's empty, but
(07:32):
he's just like yeah, and I would shoot him again
if you weren't already dead. And then he was found
innocent in a court of law because the pop Wow,
this doesn't feel timely, because enough people were like, you
know what, that killing seems perfectly justified, and so they
basically did jury nullification. Yeah, in the early twentieth century France.
For someone whose family survived some some awful stuff, I
(07:55):
would watch a movie about him. The problem is is
that whenever people ask these questions about it specific episode,
I'm like, I don't remember any episodes. I've never seen it.
I don't know anything about my own podcast.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I wonder if there is one about that pirate queen
of Ireland. Probably his name I now don't remember, but
I would watch that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Personally, I'd love to see a City of Gnomes movie
about those people that like rebuilt, like like Amsterdam, right,
I remember it's.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Correctly, Yeah, the caboalter, so the cabouter, the.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Provost, the provosts, and then and then the cabouters.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that would be cool.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I think that would be really fun. And then there's
another I'm trying to remember the other one that I
was like, who was this? Oh mm hmmm mmm mmm, Okay,
I'd love a freedom House movie. Freedom House would be
a really cool movie.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah. No, I'm I'm like surprised there isn't one, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah? Yeah, also just like a built an amazing title.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, there's so many of these stories as we like
learn about them, are just like, how do we not
all know that? How did we not know that the
first paramedics were blackman from Pittsburgh? You know?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, I mean the Pittsburgh of it all is like
a really good for a movie set. I feel yeah,
I feel like that would be really fun. Macpey, who's
your favorite person that you've covered?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Oh? I love all of my children equally and also
don't remember any of their names.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
But what I was about to say, I was like,
I was like, no, you don't you remember who they are?
I never podcast all the little details go bye bye.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I mean, okay, let's see. I have never done a
Mala Testa episode, but he's woven through so many stories.
I think I'm afraid to do an episode about him
because what if it turns out he's a jerk?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know? Is there an Emma Goldman movie?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Emma Goldman is in the movie Reds that I haven't
seen in a million.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Year, but it's not good. But like there isn't like a.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Direct No, oh, there isn't Ema Goldman movie.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah. I was thinking about how because anarchism is a
raced out of every bit of history. Like I was
just reading about this thing that I'm gonna be talking
about soon, so I don't want to spoil it. Yeah,
I was like reading about this thing where I was like, oh,
and then these anti fascists from Spain did all of
this amazing work with their anti authoritarian ideas about how
to do the following, And I'm like, nowhere in this
(10:25):
like five thousand word article as I say anarchists, And
I was like, this is why people can't track spread
of this ideology, is that these people who like fought
and died for this. Just so Emma Goldman is like,
I mean, she's even vaguely famous. I think the average
I don't know, the average American probably doesn't know Goldman is, but.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
She's like, time I visit my Midwest family, I'll do
a poll.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I feel like you get an
older American and they'll know who Saquin Vinzetti are, but
they're not like, yeah, they're fine, but they're not like
the heroes. They're not Emma gold Yeah. Anyway, Wow, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Really enjoyed this year. You tell you. I think this
was back in like March. Yeah, marchish you telling us
the real story of Oscar Wilde because I was like,
I was like, you know Oscar Wilde. I was like, no, no, no,
that's actually like legit vital information. Okay, that's who I like.
I don't want someone else to make a biopic about
(11:25):
Oscar World. I want to make a biopic about Oscar Wilde.
I want you to make a biopic of Oscar World.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Also, I think I will be in a better position
to understand weirdo artist anarchist Catholics than the average person.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, we're gonna go to our first side break, hooray.
I think this year we have to come up with
something as good as potatoes. Okay, which is hard because
(11:58):
that's as good as potatoes.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I don't know, we tried the medieval weapons thing for
a while, but it didn't stick.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
No, I think it should be another food.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Okay, but like, what's more pasta pasta? Because the Nazis
hated it. It's true and there's a lot of types.
That's true. We're dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Oh that's better.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I like that. Okay, speaking of.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Dinosaurs, what are the next questions? Is? What are your
favorite dinosaurs? That's a question for you, but it's not
a question for me because I don't have a favorite dinosaur.
I love all dinosaurs equally because I don't know their names.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I love that. That's what you when when you don't
know the name of something, you're like, I like all
of them?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I do? I do? I said, nope, I take it back.
What's the one the one with the two big heads?
Do little arms? Too big a body?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
T rex?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
T RECs? That? I love any animal with two little arms,
that's fair. Yeah. Animal? Do we categorize dinosaurs as animals?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Interesting?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Do you categorize a dinosaurs animal? I think that. I mean,
I'm gonna call it a creature.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, in the in the abstract, I would it's an animal, sure,
But I feel like they're so completely their own taxonomical
thing is dinosaur. You know, yeah, I think Ankliosaurus there's
like something about just like. I think it's probably because
I think there was like a he man character that
rode one when I was a little kid or something.
I'm not actually sure why, but esthetically I find the
(13:19):
Ankliosaurus very admirable.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I like that this listener knew you would have a
very specific answer. That's why they asked that question. What's
something that leftists can learn from previous movements? I can
answer that question very, very very quickly. Oh, you should
go first in fighting is not worth it. Infighting is
not worth it. No, your neighbors be dice. Infighting is
(13:46):
not worth it.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Okay to complicate it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I think that the things to learn from the past,
one of them is I think there's this version of
petty infighting that happens constantly that is absolutely destroyed so
many things. And actually it's really great now that the
right wing's doing it in the US right now. I
hope that that keeps up instead. But I think one
of the things for me when I look at history
(14:11):
is you can trust individual people who have adherences to
larger power structures. But you can't necessarily trust those power structures.
So like individual authoritarian communists who aren't like man, I
love authority, they're just like trying to make socialism right
have done an amazing work. But I would say that
(14:35):
basically one of the great lessons of history is that
we can have political pluralism with people who believe in
political pluralism. Yeah, but there are people who want to
like dominate and control, and they will turn on us
in the middle of major conflicts again and again and again,
and we see it over and over and over again
(14:57):
in history. The other thing that I was kind of
prized to learn but in retrospect it's obvious, but I
just hadn't really put it through organizing. Nothing gets done
without organizing. And I think that this is like the
you know, there's this huge historical tension in socialism between
the three polls of it are sort of democratic socialism, anarchism,
(15:17):
and state communism, right, and there's this tension between anti
authoritarian and authoritarian communists where the authoritarian communists very rightly
are like, you got to organize to get stuff done, right,
but then the anti authoritarian anarchists are, well, the anarchists
are very also rightly being like, well, you all keep
murdering everyone and that's bad. Yeah, and so if we
(15:40):
do organizing, then they won't have a point and then
we're good.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's my lesson of history, and it doesn't have to
be under that name. And like, I do believe in
political pluralism and avoiding infighting. It's just it's that tolerance paradox, right,
in the same way that you can't really tolerate bigots, right,
you can't tolerate intolerance. You can't have solidarity with people
who don't have whose politics is not based on having
(16:09):
solidarity with you. That's what I got.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I'm assuming you mentioned something about this on the podcast
because somebody wants to know, how did your sourdough experience go?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Oh, I have no idea if I said anything about this.
My experience of sour dough is I left the starter
in my fridge for long enough that I was like,
I don't know what to do with this now, because
I learned how to make a non sour dough rustic
loaf that just makes me perfectly happy. And now I'm like,
I'm just good on bread. I like make the bread
that I really like eating, and so now I'm kind
of have no real interest in sourdough. Sour dow is great.
(16:41):
I'm not knocking it. It's just there's enough things I'm
trying to keep alive in my house.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, my friend Sarah makes a really amazing sour dough bread.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And then I've never attempted, but I am signed up
to take a class with my friend Mollie. Hi, Molly
at some point this year. Nice magpie. What's the worst
thing you've ever eaten? That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
What's the worst thing I've ever eaten?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Fuck?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I get answer that shit real quickly, right, you go,
you go?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Fucking uh. This is like back when I was like
less food conscious and less allergic to things. I fucking
had a Wallburger from Wallburger's Mark Wahlberg's restaurant that's now
no longer around because it was like walking distance to
where I used to live in LA. That is the
most disgusting food I've ever had. It was so fucking bad.
(17:35):
It was so gross. Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I fed myself primarily from trash between the years of
two thousand and two maybe two thousand and six. And
there's a lot of amazing food that you can find
in the dumpster. There's also a lot of food that
is really gross and isn't food anymore, that you can
find in the dumpster. And I learned how to distinguish
(17:59):
between the two the hard way, on numerous occasions is
the way I'll phrase that. I've also like eaten stuff
where I was like, sometimes people literally poisoned food before
they put it in the garbage because they want to
kill homeless people, yeah, or avoid liability as a corporation
by not allowing people to eat their food. And so
(18:21):
there's like bagels with bleach on them and stuff like
that in the trash. And I have accidentally consumed more
than I should have of poisoned food.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Still fucking better than Wallburgers. Let me tell you fair enough.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, I mean I have this advantage of being vegan.
Like for a little while, I was actually freaking, which
is a terrible title, and I was like, because this
isn't contributing to the you know, the exploitation of animals
by capitalism or whatever. If I eat it once it's
been thrown away. But then what I realize is that
by sticking to veganism with my dumpster diving I was
saving myself an awful lot of headache and put food poisoning.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
So fair enough. What are some of your favorite movies
and or books from this past year.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I really liked I saw the TV Glow again. My
brain turns off. I'm like, I've never read a book.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I spent like forty or fifty hours while I was
on tour listening to this audio book called The Deluge
by Stephen Markley. It's just a what might happen with
climate change book. It's a little bit, you know, it's weird.
I don't want to say it's like one of my
favorite books because there's like, I don't know, I have
complicated feelings about it, but I also found it. I
(19:38):
really appreciate the couple authors I've read who've done the
really big picture work at looking at like thirty years
of climate change possibility. This book The Deluge and then
The Ministry for the Future of the Future by Kim
Stanley Robinson are the two books that I've read that
have like really undertaken that work. I like learned a
(20:01):
lot from it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, I read I really injured. Mio Wong suggested that
I read Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano. That's a really
good book. I read that this year. I'm in the
middle of reading a book called The Anxious Generation, which
is by a professor named Jonathan. I think his last
name is pronounced hate h a I d T sorry,
(20:23):
famous pronounced that. And it's kind of just like about
how like childhood has been rewired due because of technology,
and it's super interesting. It reminds me a lot about
what Edza Trun talks about on his podcast. And I'm
in the middle of that book right now, and it's
really interesting. For movies, I really liked Challengers that came
out this year. For new movies, I see a lot
(20:44):
of old movies.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
What's an old movie that you watched this year?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Old movie that I watched this year? I saw a
rear Window in theaters. That was awesome. I saw cool
It's a Wonderful Life. That was great. I always see
wicker Man in theaters.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh, hell yeah, I love I rewatched The Wickerman again
this year. I love that movie.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
It's it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
It's one of the most perfect films.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
It's perfect. I have no fucking notes. It's so fucking good.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I'm like, what the fuck did I see? Oh my god, Okay, yeah,
I saw. I saw some really good girly girly bot movies.
I saw uh Moulin Rouge. I saw Saved. If you
haven't seen Saved, it's it's not necessary for theater theater consumption,
but it's a great time, and I feel like it's
not not always on television. I saw Bringing On in theaters.
(21:41):
That was hilarious. Everybody knew all the words. I saw
Titanic in thirty five millimeter. That was amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Okay, ah, we saw The Wizard of Oz too, and
I got to obnoxiously tell everybody the history of Toto,
how Toto was a girl, and how Toto got injured
on set mid movie and they had to swing shot
total with another dog, and so she got replaced with
the boy dog. And it's like, uh, how dare.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I like that? That's like probably the equivalent of there's
a lot of memes about Lord of the Rings about
how everyone that you watch Lord of the Rings with
wants to tell you about when what's his name kicks
the helmet, he like breaks his toe and so he's
like running around and jumping is like real. Yeah, I
wonder if the Toto being switched is the same.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I saw Kneecap this year and it was amazing and
made me want to learn Irish. Oh yeah, I watched
a lot of bad movies this year.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
But I love bad movies.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I know, but I'm not going to shout out any
of the bad movies I like. But I like bad movies.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
That's for us. Yeah, we're gonna take one more break
and then we'll come back and I'll ask you, I
don't know, two or two more questions.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Or so, Sophie, what's your favorite advertiser?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
And if that wasn't an ad for you know, the
concept of Lebron James, the concept of your favorite basketball
player currently it's not that's not all time it Wow,
I'm trying not to ask some of these questions. I'm
(23:22):
like Jesus Christ, Margaret, what are some theorists slash works
that you think shaped your worldview the most?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So it's kind of a cop out answer, But most
of my early theory came orally right, Most of my
early theory and that it did come from books, but
it came from people I was organizing with who had
read those books. So I don't always know the names
of a lot of the sort of theorists who influenced,
(23:53):
especially my early political upbringing, and then more recently, I mean,
it's funny. There's a guy named Ed Whitfield who works
with a group called Seed Commons that does cooperative loan financing, right,
And it sounds boring on the outset, but it is
this like revolutionary way of We talked about it a
(24:14):
bit in the Argentina episodes when people took over their factories.
That concept of how to do worker cooperatization and how
to finance it eventually came to the United States and
then it tied in with black radicals talking about cooperativism.
And if there's like one upside to a country like
the United States, it is the syncretic nature of all
(24:36):
of these different ideas. And so there's all of these
different radical currents that co exist within the United States
that can like interact with each other really beautifully. And
so seeing like South American cooperativism meet Black cooperativism of
North America has created a really interesting set of solutions, right,
(24:57):
And so Ed Whitfield is one of the people who
works at Steve Commons as an older black radical and
you know, participated in like university takeovers with the guns
in the sixties and that kind of stuff, right, And
he just like laid out economics in a way that
I hadn't I hadn't understood it. It was the first
(25:17):
time in a long time I learned new stuff about
how capitalism and the economy work was listening to Ed Whitfield.
So I guess I would say general. But I don't
think he's written any books, but you can look him
up on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
He gives talks, Well, what are your what's your favorite
kind of potato currently?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Okay, this isn't the cop out. It's not even that
I don't know the names, but I love all potatoes equally.
It's more that I just like, I genuinely like diffy
different type of potato. But actually I don't always know
their names. As soon as we're done, I'm going to
roast potatoes and asparagus in the oven, and I'm going
to use those like smaller ones that he cut into
quarters new potatoes. But I make a lot of French
(25:55):
fries at home, and I use big old Idaho potatoes
for those. And again Russets, I often actually don't know
the names of potatoes. I don't know if I said
it on air, but my potato harvest was destroyed by
potato blight this year. Oh my god, I only successfully
got a couple potatoes. That's horrible, I know, but my
sweet potatoes were fine. Okay, So last night I ate
(26:17):
my last sweet potato that I grew this year, and
I French fried it, and I think it's just was
a fun, like sacrilegious moment to like, I'm gonna grow
this thing. And then I was like, and then I'm goen.
I cover it in oil and put in the air
fryar and then covered and ketchup and it was so good.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I have two potato recipes I would like to shout
out at the end here that I've tried this year
that I had not tried in previous years, and I'm like,
what was I doing. The first is a stacked potato recipe.
You take it, you get like one of those potato
sliceror mandolin type looking things, and it works with most
(26:51):
kind of potatoes, but for this it's good if you
have like a Yukon gold buttery potato type thing and
you get a muffin ten, okay, and at the bottom
of muffin t and you put a little bit of
oil or butter, some herbs, and you start stacking those
thin slices of potatoes in each muffin tin, seasoning along
the way with fresh herbs, and then a little bit
(27:12):
of cheese, and then you bake them.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Delightful. That sounds really good.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The second potato recipe, which I was like, why did
I not know about this? It's amazing. Have you ever
had a crispy half scored half potato?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Robert made me one.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Okay, well it was probably because I told him about
this shit, Probably fucking Robert, But I'm glad you had one.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It was so good.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's so good. So you cut like this works best
with like a rusted potato. You cut them in half,
and then you score the top of it so it
should look like a little bit of like a checkerboard situation.
You oil, orb whatever, sea salt, and you bake them
scored side down on a cookie sheet, and it takes
(28:01):
like half the time of a baked potato and is
just as good, but a little bit crispier.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I really love the alchemy of cooking. I'm not very
good at it. I'm like learning it as a I
didn't have a kitchen or a house most of my
adult life. Yeah, and I've lived in various barns and
vehicles and yards and things. But I love the alchemy
of like small changes change so much about it. I
(28:27):
love that you can take a potato and there's so
many ways to cook a potato with the same ingredients
and they genuinely are different experiences. It makes me really happy.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah. I didn't grow up with parents who cooked. We
were a very much a somebody else, take out, leftover
type family.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
And if we did cook, it was like, I don't know,
microwaved hot dog, yeah, which I still loved to this day. Yeah,
But as so what I But I've really invested in
cooking in the last couple of years, and I've learned
a lot from YouTube and as well as like my
brother and his wife are phenomenal chefs, so I've learned
(29:10):
from them and like friends, and I'm like, I can
make almost any recipe. Im Like, if there's instructions, hell,
yeah I can. I can do that. And I feel
like that's really fucking cool. Yeah, And like YouTube and
TikTok and whatever. Thank you to all those people that
teach you how to make things, because like you've enriched
(29:31):
so many lives.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I mean, that's genuinely one of the most beautiful things
about the modern era. Like, yeah, when I built the
cabin I lived in, people are like, how'd you do?
How did you learn how to do that? And I'm like, well,
I talked to some other people about cabins and mostly
watch YouTube videos. Yeah, and yeah with cooking, like there's
not a like I don't think I'm going to learn
to do surgery by watching YouTube. No, but any skill
(29:56):
that not succeeding one hundred percent isn't the end of
the world. You can learn by teaching yourself by watching
YouTube And that's cool.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yep, Well I'll do it for our part one on
Q and A. We'll be back on Wednesday with the
Blue Sky Questions. Woo bye. Cool People Who Did Cool
Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
(30:28):
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to coopby bul Died Cool Stuff twenty
twenty five edition. And by that, I mean it's the
start of the year, and so we're gonna do a
question to answer episode like we've done at the start
of I think every year. I'm Marder Kiljoy and I
don't know why my voice just cracked. And my producer
is Sophie Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Sophie Hi, MiG Pie. I don't know why your voice
cracked either.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It cracked earlier today and I don't know. I think
I'm finally going through anyway. Uh, that's making real personal
jokes on air. That's a normal thing. But our audio
engineer is Rory Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Rory Hi, Roy.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Our theme musical is written for us by unwoman, and
our guest today is nobody.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Ah Hey, Magfie. Yeah, do you want to answer some questions?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Do I ever want to answer some questions?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, we posted on Instagram and Blue Sky asking for you,
dear listeners, to submit your questions, and by golly, you did,
so we're going to start with the Instagram questions today.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You ready, I was born ready?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I know this about you, Magpie. What story or person's
story do you find yourself returning to when you are
in need of hope or inspiration for these trying times.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Ooh, okay, I can't remember his name. I just remembered it,
Willem Arundeus. On the Gay Resistance to Fascism episode we
did right out of the Gate, there's a man who
he helped burn a bunch of Nazi records and the Netherlands,
and he was part of this art click that did
forgery that saved tens of thousands of people's lives and
(01:49):
then also destroyed the records that they were using to
track people. And he was caught and before he was executed,
he got his last words out through his lawyer, and
his lawyer told the world that his last words were
never let them say that homosexuals or cowards or something
to that effect. And just like all of the people
(02:12):
that they think are timid are not timid. That's what
That's what I keep coming back to. What about you?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, I think I think about the Jine collective a lot,
and yeah, food not bombs a lot, just because we
get a lot of messages about that. Do you want
to tell people a little bit about those messages?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Oh? Yeah. One of the things that I actually sent
on on New Year's I sent this out three in
the morning, message out to everyone who helps work on
this show, because there's a whole bunch of people who
help who work on this show, and I'm just incredibly
grateful to them. And I know that everyone's supposed to
say that, but it's like, but the reason I was
expressing this gratitude to everyone is that I've got a
bunch of messages from different Food Not Bombs chapters around
(02:52):
the country that have basically been like, hey, our numbers
have dramatically increased after you do an episode about food
out Bombs or you know, people on cool Zone Media
talk about how I look at the end of the day,
there's nothing wrong with given out food, you know. And
I met someone once who was like had been looking
for their place in life and was like, now I'm
just a cook. I just make soup all the time
(03:12):
and I love it and it's their thing, you know,
And that was like, I don't know, podcast seems like
a weirdly lonely endeavor, even though we obviously have these
zoom calls, right, but like, I just spend dozens of
hours every week at least reading books and writing by myself.
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, it's like a very uh like it's an introverted
career where you have to be extroverted on Mike for
like part of the week.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, I'm a social sprinter, is the way I've always
put it.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, you are.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
One time, my whole family is like super hard introverts,
and I was talking about being an introvert and my
family laughed because I'm the most outgoing person in my
media family. Yeah, but you will hold me up against
most of my friends and people are like no, I
mean literally all you do is hide in your house,
you know.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
You know, yeah, yeah, I have the same thing in
my family where I'm like no, no, no, I just
it's just not that way, guys.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
My Margaret's ability to maintain optimism in dark times always
helps me. Oh, is there anything either of you are
looking forward to in the next year. That's a nice,
nice thing.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
I am. I learned a long time ago that my
emotional state is really directly tied into how the things
I'm making are going, which is not for the best.
I don't recommend this particular style of being to anyone,
but projects that I'm working on, whether they're political, organizing,
which I don't do as much of these days, or
(04:47):
if they're like you know, podcasts or books or whatever,
how those are going really directly affects my mood. And
so even as things are going really badly in the
world or and you know, directly materially in my life
or you know, legalistically for trans people or whatever, I
(05:07):
can kind of always come back to, like, how's what
I'm writing going, you know. And so there's that, and
then there's also just the fact that, like, I mean,
the whole idea of the show, right when I first said,
I was like, oh, cool people did cool stuff, And
I was like, oh, it's first, I have to spend
a long time describing all the bad things, you know,
because that's where like the cool people come from, is
(05:28):
in opposition to the bad. So I'm looking forward to
the flowerings of resistance. Yeah, that were I mean, I
would rather not, right, I'd rather just be looking forward
to like making art. And I would be perfectly happy
if all I did was like carve wooden boxes or whatever,
you know. But you know, we work with what we got,
(05:51):
and we got rough times coming, and so therefore we
can find beauty in how people respond to and deal
with thought. How about you?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, I mean, I'm honestly just looking forward to being
home and seeing my friends at my home. I want
to sit still for a minute.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I feel like I did not sit still in twenty
twenty four and that was hard. Yeah, but I'm looking
forward to I've got several different friends that I'll be
coming into my area early next year, and I'm very
happy about that.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Oh, importing friends is the best.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And if you're listening and you
know I'm talking about you, Hi, let's see. Oh, this
is a cool question. Who are your top picks for
their stories going full bio pic in the cinema?
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Oh. I feel like half of the episodes we do
are things that absolutely would be that and then just
aren't because they're, yeah, you know, the wrong kind of
political or of a person or something. Uh. I would
watch the story of Scharlam Swartzbard's life, who was the
(07:11):
Ukrainian anarchist Jew who assassinated the man who did all
the pogroms against his own family, just like gunned him
down in the streets of France, and then the cops
came and were like, did you just kill that man?
And he's like I did. And then there's versions of
the story where he points the gun at the body
and pulls the trigger just yeah, the gun's empty, but
(07:32):
he's just like yeah, and I would shoot him again
if you weren't already dead. And then he was found
innocent in a court of law because the pop Wow,
this doesn't feel timely, because enough people were like, you
know what, that killing seems perfectly justified, and so they
basically did jury nullification. Yeah, in the early twentieth century France.
For someone whose family survived some some awful stuff, I
(07:55):
would watch a movie about him. The problem is is
that whenever people ask these questions about it specific episode,
I'm like, I don't remember any episodes. I've never seen it.
I don't know anything about my own podcast.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I wonder if there is one about that pirate queen
of Ireland. Probably his name I now don't remember, but
I would watch that.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Personally, I'd love to see a City of Gnomes movie
about those people that like rebuilt, like like Amsterdam, right,
I remember it's.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Correctly, Yeah, the caboalter, so the cabouter, the.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Provost, the provosts, and then and then the cabouters.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that would be cool.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
I think that would be really fun. And then there's
another I'm trying to remember the other one that I
was like, who was this? Oh mm hmmm mmm mmm, Okay,
I'd love a freedom House movie. Freedom House would be
a really cool movie.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah. No, I'm I'm like surprised there isn't one, you know.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah? Yeah, also just like a built an amazing title.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, there's so many of these stories as we like
learn about them, are just like, how do we not
all know that? How did we not know that the
first paramedics were blackman from Pittsburgh? You know?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, I mean the Pittsburgh of it all is like
a really good for a movie set. I feel yeah,
I feel like that would be really fun. Macpey, who's
your favorite person that you've covered?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Oh? I love all of my children equally and also
don't remember any of their names.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
But what I was about to say, I was like,
I was like, no, you don't you remember who they are?
I never podcast all the little details go bye bye.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I mean, okay, let's see. I have never done a
Mala Testa episode, but he's woven through so many stories.
I think I'm afraid to do an episode about him
because what if it turns out he's a jerk?
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know? Is there an Emma Goldman movie?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Emma Goldman is in the movie Reds that I haven't
seen in a million.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Year, but it's not good. But like there isn't like a.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Direct No, oh, there isn't Ema Goldman movie.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah. I was thinking about how because anarchism is a
raced out of every bit of history. Like I was
just reading about this thing that I'm gonna be talking
about soon, so I don't want to spoil it. Yeah,
I was like reading about this thing where I was like, oh,
and then these anti fascists from Spain did all of
this amazing work with their anti authoritarian ideas about how
to do the following, And I'm like, nowhere in this
(10:25):
like five thousand word article as I say anarchists, And
I was like, this is why people can't track spread
of this ideology, is that these people who like fought
and died for this. Just so Emma Goldman is like,
I mean, she's even vaguely famous. I think the average
I don't know, the average American probably doesn't know Goldman is, but.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
She's like, time I visit my Midwest family, I'll do
a poll.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I feel like you get an
older American and they'll know who Saquin Vinzetti are, but
they're not like, yeah, they're fine, but they're not like
the heroes. They're not Emma gold Yeah. Anyway, Wow, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Really enjoyed this year. You tell you. I think this
was back in like March. Yeah, marchish you telling us
the real story of Oscar Wilde because I was like,
I was like, you know Oscar Wilde. I was like, no, no, no,
that's actually like legit vital information. Okay, that's who I like.
I don't want someone else to make a biopic about
(11:25):
Oscar World. I want to make a biopic about Oscar Wilde.
I want you to make a biopic of Oscar World.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Also, I think I will be in a better position
to understand weirdo artist anarchist Catholics than the average person.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, we're gonna go to our first side break, hooray.
I think this year we have to come up with
something as good as potatoes. Okay, which is hard because
(11:58):
that's as good as potatoes.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I don't know, we tried the medieval weapons thing for
a while, but it didn't stick.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
No, I think it should be another food.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Okay, but like, what's more pasta pasta? Because the Nazis
hated it. It's true and there's a lot of types.
That's true. We're dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Oh that's better.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I like that. Okay, speaking of.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Dinosaurs, what are the next questions? Is? What are your
favorite dinosaurs? That's a question for you, but it's not
a question for me because I don't have a favorite dinosaur.
I love all dinosaurs equally because I don't know their names.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I love that. That's what you when when you don't
know the name of something, you're like, I like all
of them?
Speaker 1 (12:37):
I do? I do? I said, nope, I take it back.
What's the one the one with the two big heads?
Do little arms? Too big a body?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
T rex?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
T RECs? That? I love any animal with two little arms,
that's fair. Yeah. Animal? Do we categorize dinosaurs as animals?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Interesting?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Do you categorize a dinosaurs animal? I think that. I mean,
I'm gonna call it a creature.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, in the in the abstract, I would it's an animal, sure,
But I feel like they're so completely their own taxonomical
thing is dinosaur. You know, yeah, I think Ankliosaurus there's
like something about just like. I think it's probably because
I think there was like a he man character that
rode one when I was a little kid or something.
I'm not actually sure why, but esthetically I find the
(13:19):
Ankliosaurus very admirable.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
I like that this listener knew you would have a
very specific answer. That's why they asked that question. What's
something that leftists can learn from previous movements? I can
answer that question very, very very quickly. Oh, you should
go first in fighting is not worth it. Infighting is
not worth it. No, your neighbors be dice. Infighting is
(13:46):
not worth it.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Okay to complicate it.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I think that the things to learn from the past,
one of them is I think there's this version of
petty infighting that happens constantly that is absolutely destroyed so
many things. And actually it's really great now that the
right wing's doing it in the US right now. I
hope that that keeps up instead. But I think one
of the things for me when I look at history
(14:11):
is you can trust individual people who have adherences to
larger power structures. But you can't necessarily trust those power structures.
So like individual authoritarian communists who aren't like man, I
love authority, they're just like trying to make socialism right
have done an amazing work. But I would say that
(14:35):
basically one of the great lessons of history is that
we can have political pluralism with people who believe in
political pluralism. Yeah, but there are people who want to
like dominate and control, and they will turn on us
in the middle of major conflicts again and again and again,
and we see it over and over and over again
(14:57):
in history. The other thing that I was kind of
prized to learn but in retrospect it's obvious, but I
just hadn't really put it through organizing. Nothing gets done
without organizing. And I think that this is like the
you know, there's this huge historical tension in socialism between
the three polls of it are sort of democratic socialism, anarchism,
(15:17):
and state communism, right, and there's this tension between anti
authoritarian and authoritarian communists where the authoritarian communists very rightly
are like, you got to organize to get stuff done, right,
but then the anti authoritarian anarchists are, well, the anarchists
are very also rightly being like, well, you all keep
murdering everyone and that's bad. Yeah, and so if we
(15:40):
do organizing, then they won't have a point and then
we're good.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
That's my lesson of history, and it doesn't have to
be under that name. And like, I do believe in
political pluralism and avoiding infighting. It's just it's that tolerance paradox, right,
in the same way that you can't really tolerate bigots, right,
you can't tolerate intolerance. You can't have solidarity with people
who don't have whose politics is not based on having
(16:09):
solidarity with you. That's what I got.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
I'm assuming you mentioned something about this on the podcast
because somebody wants to know, how did your sourdough experience go?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Oh, I have no idea if I said anything about this.
My experience of sour dough is I left the starter
in my fridge for long enough that I was like,
I don't know what to do with this now, because
I learned how to make a non sour dough rustic
loaf that just makes me perfectly happy. And now I'm like,
I'm just good on bread. I like make the bread
that I really like eating, and so now I'm kind
of have no real interest in sourdough. Sour dow is great.
(16:41):
I'm not knocking it. It's just there's enough things I'm
trying to keep alive in my house.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, my friend Sarah makes a really amazing sour dough bread.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
And then I've never attempted, but I am signed up
to take a class with my friend Mollie. Hi, Molly
at some point this year. Nice magpie. What's the worst
thing you've ever eaten? That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
What's the worst thing I've ever eaten?
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Fuck?
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I get answer that shit real quickly, right, you go,
you go?
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Fucking uh. This is like back when I was like
less food conscious and less allergic to things. I fucking
had a Wallburger from Wallburger's Mark Wahlberg's restaurant that's now
no longer around because it was like walking distance to
where I used to live in LA. That is the
most disgusting food I've ever had. It was so fucking bad.
(17:35):
It was so gross. Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I fed myself primarily from trash between the years of
two thousand and two maybe two thousand and six. And
there's a lot of amazing food that you can find
in the dumpster. There's also a lot of food that
is really gross and isn't food anymore, that you can
find in the dumpster. And I learned how to distinguish
(17:59):
between the two the hard way, on numerous occasions is
the way I'll phrase that. I've also like eaten stuff
where I was like, sometimes people literally poisoned food before
they put it in the garbage because they want to
kill homeless people, yeah, or avoid liability as a corporation
by not allowing people to eat their food. And so
(18:21):
there's like bagels with bleach on them and stuff like
that in the trash. And I have accidentally consumed more
than I should have of poisoned food.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Still fucking better than Wallburgers. Let me tell you fair enough.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Well, I mean I have this advantage of being vegan.
Like for a little while, I was actually freaking, which
is a terrible title, and I was like, because this
isn't contributing to the you know, the exploitation of animals
by capitalism or whatever. If I eat it once it's
been thrown away. But then what I realize is that
by sticking to veganism with my dumpster diving I was
saving myself an awful lot of headache and put food poisoning.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
So fair enough. What are some of your favorite movies
and or books from this past year.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I really liked I saw the TV Glow again. My
brain turns off. I'm like, I've never read a book.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I spent like forty or fifty hours while I was
on tour listening to this audio book called The Deluge
by Stephen Markley. It's just a what might happen with
climate change book. It's a little bit, you know, it's weird.
I don't want to say it's like one of my
favorite books because there's like, I don't know, I have
complicated feelings about it, but I also found it. I
(19:38):
really appreciate the couple authors I've read who've done the
really big picture work at looking at like thirty years
of climate change possibility. This book The Deluge and then
The Ministry for the Future of the Future by Kim
Stanley Robinson are the two books that I've read that
have like really undertaken that work. I like learned a
(20:01):
lot from it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, I read I really injured. Mio Wong suggested that
I read Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano. That's a really
good book. I read that this year. I'm in the
middle of reading a book called The Anxious Generation, which
is by a professor named Jonathan. I think his last
name is pronounced hate h a I d T sorry,
(20:23):
famous pronounced that. And it's kind of just like about
how like childhood has been rewired due because of technology,
and it's super interesting. It reminds me a lot about
what Edza Trun talks about on his podcast. And I'm
in the middle of that book right now, and it's
really interesting. For movies, I really liked Challengers that came
out this year. For new movies, I see a lot
(20:44):
of old movies.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
What's an old movie that you watched this year?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Old movie that I watched this year? I saw a
rear Window in theaters. That was awesome. I saw cool
It's a Wonderful Life. That was great. I always see
wicker Man in theaters.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Oh, hell yeah, I love I rewatched The Wickerman again
this year. I love that movie.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
It's it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
It's one of the most perfect films.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
It's perfect. I have no fucking notes. It's so fucking good.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I'm like, what the fuck did I see? Oh my god, Okay, yeah,
I saw. I saw some really good girly girly bot movies.
I saw uh Moulin Rouge. I saw Saved. If you
haven't seen Saved, it's it's not necessary for theater theater consumption,
but it's a great time, and I feel like it's
not not always on television. I saw Bringing On in theaters.
(21:41):
That was hilarious. Everybody knew all the words. I saw
Titanic in thirty five millimeter. That was amazing.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Okay, ah, we saw The Wizard of Oz too, and
I got to obnoxiously tell everybody the history of Toto,
how Toto was a girl, and how Toto got injured
on set mid movie and they had to swing shot
total with another dog, and so she got replaced with
the boy dog. And it's like, uh, how dare.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I like that? That's like probably the equivalent of there's
a lot of memes about Lord of the Rings about
how everyone that you watch Lord of the Rings with
wants to tell you about when what's his name kicks
the helmet, he like breaks his toe and so he's
like running around and jumping is like real. Yeah, I
wonder if the Toto being switched is the same.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
I saw Kneecap this year and it was amazing and
made me want to learn Irish. Oh yeah, I watched
a lot of bad movies this year.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
But I love bad movies.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I know, but I'm not going to shout out any
of the bad movies I like. But I like bad movies.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
That's for us. Yeah, we're gonna take one more break
and then we'll come back and I'll ask you, I
don't know, two or two more questions.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Or so, Sophie, what's your favorite advertiser?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
And if that wasn't an ad for you know, the
concept of Lebron James, the concept of your favorite basketball
player currently it's not that's not all time it Wow,
I'm trying not to ask some of these questions. I'm
(23:22):
like Jesus Christ, Margaret, what are some theorists slash works
that you think shaped your worldview the most?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So it's kind of a cop out answer, But most
of my early theory came orally right, Most of my
early theory and that it did come from books, but
it came from people I was organizing with who had
read those books. So I don't always know the names
of a lot of the sort of theorists who influenced,
(23:53):
especially my early political upbringing, and then more recently, I mean,
it's funny. There's a guy named Ed Whitfield who works
with a group called Seed Commons that does cooperative loan financing, right,
And it sounds boring on the outset, but it is
this like revolutionary way of We talked about it a
(24:14):
bit in the Argentina episodes when people took over their factories.
That concept of how to do worker cooperatization and how
to finance it eventually came to the United States and
then it tied in with black radicals talking about cooperativism.
And if there's like one upside to a country like
the United States, it is the syncretic nature of all
(24:36):
of these different ideas. And so there's all of these
different radical currents that co exist within the United States
that can like interact with each other really beautifully. And
so seeing like South American cooperativism meet Black cooperativism of
North America has created a really interesting set of solutions, right,
(24:57):
And so Ed Whitfield is one of the people who
works at Steve Commons as an older black radical and
you know, participated in like university takeovers with the guns
in the sixties and that kind of stuff, right, And
he just like laid out economics in a way that
I hadn't I hadn't understood it. It was the first
(25:17):
time in a long time I learned new stuff about
how capitalism and the economy work was listening to Ed Whitfield.
So I guess I would say general. But I don't
think he's written any books, but you can look him
up on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
He gives talks, Well, what are your what's your favorite
kind of potato currently?
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Okay, this isn't the cop out. It's not even that
I don't know the names, but I love all potatoes equally.
It's more that I just like, I genuinely like diffy
different type of potato. But actually I don't always know
their names. As soon as we're done, I'm going to
roast potatoes and asparagus in the oven, and I'm going
to use those like smaller ones that he cut into
quarters new potatoes. But I make a lot of French
(25:55):
fries at home, and I use big old Idaho potatoes
for those. And again Russets, I often actually don't know
the names of potatoes. I don't know if I said
it on air, but my potato harvest was destroyed by
potato blight this year. Oh my god, I only successfully
got a couple potatoes. That's horrible, I know, but my
sweet potatoes were fine. Okay, So last night I ate
(26:17):
my last sweet potato that I grew this year, and
I French fried it, and I think it's just was
a fun, like sacrilegious moment to like, I'm gonna grow
this thing. And then I was like, and then I'm goen.
I cover it in oil and put in the air
fryar and then covered and ketchup and it was so good.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I have two potato recipes I would like to shout
out at the end here that I've tried this year
that I had not tried in previous years, and I'm like,
what was I doing. The first is a stacked potato recipe.
You take it, you get like one of those potato
sliceror mandolin type looking things, and it works with most
(26:51):
kind of potatoes, but for this it's good if you
have like a Yukon gold buttery potato type thing and
you get a muffin ten, okay, and at the bottom
of muffin t and you put a little bit of
oil or butter, some herbs, and you start stacking those
thin slices of potatoes in each muffin tin, seasoning along
the way with fresh herbs, and then a little bit
(27:12):
of cheese, and then you bake them.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Delightful. That sounds really good.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
The second potato recipe, which I was like, why did
I not know about this? It's amazing. Have you ever
had a crispy half scored half potato?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Robert made me one.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Okay, well it was probably because I told him about
this shit, Probably fucking Robert, But I'm glad you had one.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
It was so good.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's so good. So you cut like this works best
with like a rusted potato. You cut them in half,
and then you score the top of it so it
should look like a little bit of like a checkerboard situation.
You oil, orb whatever, sea salt, and you bake them
scored side down on a cookie sheet, and it takes
(28:01):
like half the time of a baked potato and is
just as good, but a little bit crispier.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I really love the alchemy of cooking. I'm not very
good at it. I'm like learning it as a I
didn't have a kitchen or a house most of my
adult life. Yeah, and I've lived in various barns and
vehicles and yards and things. But I love the alchemy
of like small changes change so much about it. I
(28:27):
love that you can take a potato and there's so
many ways to cook a potato with the same ingredients
and they genuinely are different experiences. It makes me really happy.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yeah. I didn't grow up with parents who cooked. We
were a very much a somebody else, take out, leftover
type family.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
And if we did cook, it was like, I don't know,
microwaved hot dog, yeah, which I still loved to this day. Yeah,
But as so what I But I've really invested in
cooking in the last couple of years, and I've learned
a lot from YouTube and as well as like my
brother and his wife are phenomenal chefs, so I've learned
(29:10):
from them and like friends, and I'm like, I can
make almost any recipe. Im Like, if there's instructions, hell,
yeah I can. I can do that. And I feel
like that's really fucking cool. Yeah, And like YouTube and
TikTok and whatever. Thank you to all those people that
teach you how to make things, because like you've enriched
(29:31):
so many lives.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
I mean, that's genuinely one of the most beautiful things
about the modern era. Like, yeah, when I built the
cabin I lived in, people are like, how'd you do?
How did you learn how to do that? And I'm like, well,
I talked to some other people about cabins and mostly
watch YouTube videos. Yeah, and yeah with cooking, like there's
not a like I don't think I'm going to learn
to do surgery by watching YouTube. No, but any skill
(29:56):
that not succeeding one hundred percent isn't the end of
the world. You can learn by teaching yourself by watching
YouTube And that's cool.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Yep, Well I'll do it for our part one on
Q and A. We'll be back on Wednesday with the
Blue Sky Questions. Woo bye. Cool People Who Did Cool
Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
(30:28):
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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